Hearing on Native Hawaiian Contracting Preferences

If you’ve been following our notes on questionable contracting preferences for Native Hawaiian Organizations and Alaska Native Corporations, you’ll know that a few hardworking journalists have been raising questions about these practices, most notably in Hawaii Reporter and the Washington Post. (Hawaii Reporter has found that Native Hawaiian organizations have been able to use this special status to gain $500 million in reduced-competition or no-bid contracts since 2005.)

Well, finally someone is responding to the questions being raised about the fairness and efficacy of this system. Senator Inouye has called for hearings on the SBA contracting preference rules.

Oh no–not to pursue the issue about the propriety of the preferences. Don’t make me laugh. Senator Inouye would cut taxes or dance nude on Leno before doing that. No, Senator Inouye is calling for these hearings in order to give supporters of the preferences (especially the organizations that benefit from them) the chance to publicly justify and defend them. Ain’t democracy grand?